


find the wind to fill my sails

by mothicalcreatures



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Anxiety, Established Relationship, F/F, Historical Dress, Hopeful Ending, Tenderness, Trans Female Character, dated gender concepts, trans crozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21892549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothicalcreatures/pseuds/mothicalcreatures
Summary: The dress was a beautiful blue, with white embroidered flowers and deep blue leaves. The sleeves were long, and trailed off into a fine lace halfway down the arm. For several long moments Francis simply stood there, staring at the dress. It seemed much too delicate for someone so rough around the edges.
Relationships: Sophia Cracroft/Captain Francis Crozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	find the wind to fill my sails

**Author's Note:**

> So I've done a similar thing with pronouns and names that I did with my trans Fitzjames fic. For most of the fic I use he/him pronouns or avoid using pronouns and the spelling "Francis," at the very end this switches to she/her pronouns and the spelling "Frances." 
> 
> The title is from ["(I'm Gonna) Love Me Again" by Elton John and Taron Egerton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LtusBN3ST0)

Sophia twirled in front of Francis, showing off the new clothes she’d acquired. New clothes that happened to be a full set of men’s clothing: trousers, shirtsleeves, waistcoat, the works. All impeccably tailored.

“What do you think?” She asked.

“You look very handsome,” Francis said. He could feel his face heating up.

“I have something for you as well.” Sophia moved over to a pile of still unopened clothing boxes.

“It was just a thought, Sophy, you didn’t…” Francis began to protest, now starting to feel quite anxious on top of flustered.

Sophia immediately stopped opening the boxes and moved across the room to take Francis’ hand. “We don’t have to do this now. It’s not going anywhere.”

But it was here now and if Francis didn’t _do_ something, he may never work up the courage to again. It was courage enough he’d even broached the subject with Sophia those months ago. A question about if Sophia had ever had thoughts of wanting to be a man (the answer had been, she’d like the freedom, but not really), had led to a quiet confession that Francis had often found himself thinking about what life might have been like if he’d been born a woman, and then to the embarrassed acknowledgment that he would have quite liked to play the lady during his and Ross’s time in the Antarctic, a chance he’d never have again.

Sophia had called the last bit “utter nonsense” and declared that it would be quite a simple thing for her to get Francis a dress and now she had.

“Where did you order these from?” Francis asked, in lieu of making a decision about the dress.

“Jopson,” Sophia said. “I thought it might help his business if I was seen shopping there, but it was mostly because you said he was trustworthy. I thought that even if he did figure out what we were doing, he’d be the last one to judge you for it.”

Francis nodded. It was a fair assessment, Jopson had known about his feelings for Ross and had kept them a secret, _if_ he were to discover this, Francis hoped the reaction would be much the same. He hadn’t batted an eye at Ross in a dress, but that had been on the ice away from respectable society, not right in the middle of it.

“As I said we can wait,” Sophia continued, when no verbal response came from Francis.

“I think its best to simply get it over with,” Francis said and Sophia frowned.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Francis clarified quickly. “I’d merely thought that if I were to wait, I’d be more likely to end up talking myself out of doing it at all.”

Sophia smiled and pressed a kiss to Francis’ cheek before clearing the boxes and paper from _her_ clothes off the bed to arrange the boxes for Francis.

The dress was a beautiful blue, with white embroidered flowers and deep blue leaves. The sleeves were long, and trailed off into a fine lace halfway down the arm. For several long moments Francis simply stood there, staring at the dress. It seemed much too delicate for someone so rough around the edges.

“I had it modeled on that dress of mine from Van Diemen’s land you liked so much,” Sophia said. “So it’s an older style, but I thought you might like it better than some of the newer fashions.”

“Thank you,” Francis murmured, finally picking the dress up out of the box to examine it more closely.

It was considerably more broad than Sophia’s dresses, not a dress for a dainty woman that Francis would never be able to fit into, but one that would fit comfortably and not bulge in all the wrong places.

Sophia rested a hand on Francis’ shoulder. “Would you like help getting it on?”

“Please, I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with all the underthings.”

Sophia laughed gently. “Of course. Now why don’t you get undressed and I’ll lay everything out for you.”

As Francis undressed Sophia walked him through each piece of clothing. “Now the biggest differences between this dress and my own are the drawers, which I requested made with a closed crotch, and there’s also just a touch of padding in the chest of the bodice.”

Francis gave her a concerned look, but Sophia shook her head. “It’s a common request. Not something I do, but adding a bit to the chest to fill out the figure is something many ladies do. Jopson knew very well the dress wasn’t for me, but that alone wouldn’t have led him to suspect it was for you.”

Before Sophia began helping Francis to dress, she had, at Francis’ request, covered the mirror with a blanket.

“I feel terribly silly,” Francis muttered as Sophia finished securing the clasps on the bodice.

Sophia carefully adjusted the bows the front of the bodice. “Well, you don’t look it.” She stopped her fiddling to take Francis’ hands. “You look lovely. Are you ready to look in the mirror?”

Much to Francis’ relief, Sophia did not wait for a reply before she let Francis’ hands go to pull down the blanket she’d draped over the mirror.

Seeing himself in a dress was… disconcerting, but it wasn’t as horrible as Francis had feared. Sophia was right, he _didn’t_ look silly. This was not a dress worn for the spectacle of a party in an iceberg, this was fashionable and designed to flatter Francis’ specific measurements.

“What do you think?” Sophia asked.

“I think my hair looks quite out of place,” Francis said. “But I…” he trailed a hand over the bodice, feeling the silk under his fingers. “I like it very much.”

“Well it would be easy enough to find you a wig,” Sophia said, reaching up to rearrange Francis’ hair a bit, “but I think you still look quite nice with short hair.”

“I’m not sure how I’d feel about a wig,” Francis admitted, “but I could be talked into letting my hair grow out.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to do that then,” Sophia said, smiling. “Should I change for dinner? Or would you like me to stay dressed up with you?”

“Whatever you’re most comfortable with,” Francis replied.

“I think I’ll stay like this,” Sophia said. “It's quite freeing to be dressed in men's clothes.”

She offered Francis her arm. “Shall we head downstairs then, Lady Frances?”

Something warm fluttered in Frances’ chest when Sophia said that. It was like the curtains in a long closed off room had finally been opened, allowing light to come in and purify the air. And as she took Sophia’s arm, Frances couldn’t help but feel that this was the start of something entirely new. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Here is Francis' dress.](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/98242) Found for me by the wonderful norabarnacle. I'm afraid I have no similar reference for Sophia's menswear.


End file.
